Capacitors Plague Me

[reggie14]

Urgh! I really, really hate cheap electrolytic capacitors. I've had lots of bad experiences with them. Motherboards, my HD100 (twice!), and now, my Samsung TV.

My LN46A630 TV stopped turning on today, and when I called Samsung tech support, I was told it sounds a lot like a problem people are having with bad capacitors. But, when they looked up my model number, they told me my TV's serial number says it was manufactured one month after the systems that have been identified with bad caps. So, right now, they're telling me they could send out a tech to fix my TV, but it would be at my own expense. And despite the fact that the broken parts probably cost around 10 cents each, I bet the repair cost would be several hundred dollars.

Anyone else had an experience with bad capacitors in your TV?

[SWKerr]

Samsung Sucks!!!

I had a DLP TV go bad on me awhile back. I was prepared to replace the lamp or color wheel since they were moving part but what went bad the board. Crappy solder on the chip.

I had a Philips Plasma that went bad. Open it up and what do you think was the problem. The Samsung board. It might be a capacitors but the one board reporting the error does not have any capacitors that appear to be bulging out. Replacing the board would be worth more than the TV.

[Zippster]

Had the board go out on my Samsung LCD twice, BB gave up and gave us a Sony, too bad the picture was better on the Samsung.

[carlgar]

I had a Samsung LCD tv with bad caps. I found instructions on the internet about how to replace. Given the cost of the tv I decided to just replace the board for about $100 versus a $500 service call. The tv worked, but recently replaced it with a new larger Samsung LEDTv. I did buy new caps and planned the replace the caps on the old board but did not get around to it.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I had a Samsung LCD tv with bad caps. I found instructions on the internet about how to replace. Given the cost of the tv I decided to just replace the board for about $100 versus a $500 service call.

Where did you get the replacement board? How difficult was it to put in?

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Where did you get the replacement board? How difficult was it to put in?

Once I got the number off of the board, I searched the internet for the replacement board
Not hard at all, just screws and about 4-6 cables that are meant to disconnected and reconnected. Taking the back off of the TV was probably the hardest part, because of having to it twice and so many screws 9-12.

[brainbone]

I've had two LCD TVs (off brand, one was an Olivia, can't remember the other) fail from bad caps. It's easy to remove the bad caps, look up comparable (heat tolerance, size, capacity, voltage) on digikey.com, and replaced them. About $7 in parts for each TV, including shipping (most of that $7 was for shipping). Taking the TV apart was the most difficult part -- the desoldering/soldering is easy.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by brainbone

I've had two LCD TVs (off brand, one was an Olivia, can't remember the other) fail from bad caps. It's easy to remove the bad caps, look up comparable (heat tolerance, size, capacity, voltage) on digikey.com, and replaced them. About $7 in parts for each TV, including shipping (most of that $7 was for shipping). Taking the TV apart was the most difficult part -- the desoldering/soldering is easy.

I'm awful at soldering/desoldering. I nearly destroyed the power supply board on my HD100 when I fixed it the second time it failed.

I'd much rather go with an approach where I just need to remove a bunch of screws and swap out a board.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I'd much rather go with an approach where I just need to remove a bunch of screws and swap out a board.

Unless the replacement is extremely cheap, I'm usually concerned that the replacement board will just suffer the same fate eventually. If I mess up the original, I can always fall back to a replacement. If the cost is high for the replacement part, then I figure I have nothing to lose, since I'll just be buying another TV anyway.

If you just gently rock the old caps out (heat one leg, rock it, heat the other, rock it, and so on until it comes out, then do the same to "rock" the new one back in) it works pretty well. Trying to remove all the solder with the tools most DIYers have will generally cause more damage than just leaving it, and pushing/pull (gently, making sure there is enough heat, but not too much) the new/old leads through the melted solder, and then adding a touch more before you clip the new leads flush.

As long as you use the right sized iron (for the larger leads on power supply boards, those 15/25 watt irons usually wont cut it), and remember to concentrate heat on the cap's lead, not the board, it's usually not that bad.

Then again, maybe you do really suck at soldering

[photon]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I'm awful at soldering/desoldering. I nearly destroyed the power supply board on my HD100 when I fixed it the second time it failed.

I'd much rather go with an approach where I just need to remove a bunch of screws and swap out a board.

If you ever decide to attempt de-soldering again. What you need is a de soldering tool affectionately known as a solder sucker. This will turn de-soldering into child's play. I tried one of these many years ago and since then I won't even attempt de-soldering without one. One of my most valued tools. You get the solder just hot enough to melt with the solder sucker very near but not touching the iron remove the Iron and pop the button to suck away the solder:
http://youtu.be/Aw4lZGk90i4
Search for OK Industries DP-100

[mtncrux]

Most credit card companies give you an automatic 1 year extended warranty on all purchases. If your TV is less than 2 years old then it is worth checking with your credit card company.


A similar thing happened to my Panasonic 50" Plasma. I had a local TV repair shop troubleshoot the TV ($90), and then bought a replacement board in ebay for $40 and installed it myself. Total cost = $130. The estimate from the TV shop was $600. The repair took 10 minutes and didn't require anything but a screwdriver.

ebay is full of replacement boards for TVs. A lot of TV's get cracked during shipping and many of those TV's end up getting sold for parts on ebay.

[reggie14]

My tv is 2.5 years old, so my AmEx protection ran out too.

I'm going to work on samsung a bit. This model has a known problem with capacitors, but they're telling me my tv is one month too new, and doesn't have the bad capacitors that they've fessed up to. That seems a bit sketchy to me. Maybe mine doesn't have the same model of capacitor, but it does seem to have a bad model of capacitor.

If I can't get them to send someone out to fix it, I'll probably take off the back and try to see if the caps on the power board look bad. If so I can probably just buy a whole new board off eBay.

[thatdude90210]

There are some videos on youtube showing similar repairs. I guess it's common with some models of Samsungs. This guy made it look pretty easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm51C_RDIZE

I have a LN46A650 and I looked at some of the videos when I heard about the Samsung capacitor issues. Luckily, I don't have any problems yet.